I'll just throw in my 2 cents, because everyone else seems to be doing so.

I've been playing the game for about 3 or 4 years with pretty decent, not amazing success. I've won 2 national titles in Iba and have quite a few unsuccessful final four appearances across a few worlds.

I only play under one username, bbunch, and have teams in 5 worlds. I've lost and won many battles. I've never gone through something as strange as what dshook went through, which started this issue. I feel like under any system, there are always people that want to take advantage of it. I like FSS and what it added to the game, and don't feel the need for a change. I believe that the high-high recruits and scouting visits bring a really cool level of strategy to the game. I don't believe I've been out-recruited by someone using muItiple user-names to cheat and gain a scouting advantage, but it's possible that it's happened before. I do think that those cases are pretty isolated, though they do happen.

I think that recruiting is one of the most engaging and interesting parts of the game, and it's what keeps me playing. I've managed to be a pretty successful coach playing within the rules, and most other successful coaches here can probably say the same. I know and compete against many coaches with multiple usernames in one world, and I'm pretty confident that they're not using that to their advantage (with FSS recruiting) - or more specifically, I don't feel particularly disadvantaged when I recruit against them.

Here's the real issue (and I don't think it's with the game in and of itself).... I think the reason we're all having to react to this is because dshook had to get so much support from others on the forum before CS would issue an appropriate response. I wish that CS would be more willing to give users benefit of the doubt. It's obvious that dshook was screwed and he should have most probably been reimbursed much more immediately.

Look, there's a loophole in almost every system, and I don't feel like we need to over-react to this one. I believe that the game(at least in DII and DIII), for the most part is fine, and its' biggest problems are

1. complete lack of promotion
2. Customer Service either being understaffed or uninterested in addressing concerns of the game players.
3. D1 mostly sucks because of a major recruit generation issue where the big 6 conferences basically dominate the national tournament. In addition, the lack of firings sucks, and baseline prestige is mostly stupid.

Many of the veteran coaches with multiple usernames are kind of the lifeblood of the game - they're very active in forums, they set up non-conference tournaments, and often keep the game more interesting and entertaining (especially alblack with his bizarre small-school history lessons in the conference corners). I don't think it's smart to punish many of those that bring the most to this game.

I think FSS is fine. I'm fine with the 1000 mile rule, I voted to keep the status quo. I think that DII and DIII are wonderful, and DI needs some major fixing. I think that FSS shouldn't be our biggest focus. If we want to really push seble hard to change something, maybe we as users should help give suggestions to fix DI, and push some ideas toward seble. I would have lots of fun if I thought that I could realistically be competitive by building up a mid-major D1 program (like Butler, VCU, and Wichita in real life) but that's way less possible in HD.

I think by bickering over FSS for so long (which is generally a pretty good program IMO), we're worrying too much about closing loopholes (which aren't taken advantage of that often) rather than focusing on pushing for real fixes to improving the game.

Nothing's perfect. I have family members who play as well as myself and we are scrupulous about not sharing info or colluding. Not just because it's the rule but we think it reduces the fun of the challenge. I have changed my tune about multiple teams. Leave it the way it is, 1000 miles apart. I'd bet the legitimate users way outnumber the cheaters and if you have to cheat at a game like this, well, how sad are you? Call them out, don't anyone schedule them. We are in no shape to chase some of the best (and most addicted :)) coaches from the game. Whatever you try, someone will beat the system. Let's not shred our fragile population.

Before going through the experience this past recruiting season, it had never occured to me to have two teams with different logins in the same world. I recently expanded into other worlds to improve my recruiting and I think it's working. This most recent situation though will change the way I recruit going forward.

I do see merit in having two in the same as far as recruiting against yourself to learn it even more or to go up in divisions and keep your lower team. Although I don't see how as one user with two teams could possibly keep from using info discovered in FSS with one login for the other. If you allow multiple teams you have to understand that is going to happen. But, I think preventing what happened to me from being repeated, the 1000 mile must be enforced.

I don't think that this is something that is widespread, as far as recruiting improprities are concerned (save the FSS sharing info). As long as coaches just simply pay attention to what is happening and to whom they lose recruits, I think we long time coaches can police this and point it out to CS. I have to say that it did take a little longer than I expected to get fixed, but still WIS came through.

The bottom line is that this game is simply great. I love it, as I know many do. If restrictions on the number of teams would hurt the sites success, then it's simply not worth it. We veterans just simply have to support any victims of these type of situations going forward. I'm not sure if CS monitors the forum much, but that might help as well.

Agree with UWRJ This recruiting season in Crum, D2 schools took half of the top 30 D3players with 1-3 years left. And four of the top seven 4-year players. Really hard for a D3 school to compete, given the extra money and the built-in allure of playing at a higher level. Put in a ticket about it, and the first response was, cite the recruit, and school. Did, listing some two dozen recruits, and the response was, well, you are going to have some D2 schools filching D3 players. Way it is.

As far as more than one team in the same world, if you follow the 1,000 mile rule, no problem. It makes recruiting easier when you are doing two at a time. Not always convenient to be there for the vital first cycle. In the interests of full disclosure, I have an alias. In Crum, in addition to my team in the SOCAL, have an alias at another D3 scroll in New York, and in Rupp, in addition to my D1 team at Montana, have a school in the Gulf South, D2. Easy to see that there is no way for those schools to be used to cheat. If forced to give up one in each world, would probably take two new teams in different worlds.

I just realized that, following the 1,000 mile rule, someone could, if they so desired, have three teams in the same conference. And there's not just one place to do it either. You could have three in one conference in the Pac-10, WCC, North American (DII), or Great Northwest (DII). Possibly others as well. The WCC is the only one off the top of my head where you can have three teams in the continental US and not violate the 1,000 mile rule.

Sorry for the late contribution, but I am just catching up on this chain. Isn't the solution simple:

If you have multiple IDs, then you cannot recruit a player in a state that your other ID scouted. In other words, if I have two IDs, IDx1 and IDx2, and IDx1 scouts California, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, then IDx2 simply cannot recruit a player in those states.

Posted by bjb2378 on 4/23/2013 9:14:00 AM (view original):Sorry for the late contribution, but I am just catching up on this chain. Isn't the solution simple:

If you have multiple IDs, then you cannot recruit a player in a state that your other ID scouted. In other words, if I have two IDs, IDx1 and IDx2, and IDx1 scouts California, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, then IDx2 simply cannot recruit a player in those states.

Problem solved, right?

I think that'd be a great solution, but I also think it'd be very difficult for HD to monitor.

Would think HD could spot aliases by doing a sort on credit cards. Maybe the real cheaters disguise their aliases by using multiple credit cards but maybe not all. That would spot a lot of aliases, and HD could contact them. If they say, my kid, or roomie or brother is the other alias, fine--no way to tell if it is true. But it would still find a lot of guys that maybe are violating the 1,000 mile rule, and put some teeth into the rule. Wonder if they can sort by credit card, or not?